"Rouse tempers, goad and lacerate, raise whirlwinds": these instructions were pinned above the desk of Kenneth Tynan, and he followed them religiously. The finest drama critic since George Bernard Shaw, architect of Olivier's National Theatre repertoire, deviser of the erotic revue Oh! Calcutta!, journalist and social reformer, Kenneth Tynan was, in Tom Stoppard's words, "the product of our time, but our time was of his making."